Chapter 1: Intro
Notes:
edit 01-07-23: removed forever's involvement in the story
Chapter Text
It was a mistake trying to explore the slums.
No, it was bound to end badly for privileged children who dared to leave the comfort of their homes. But being beaten down by the angered people of the slums is far better than being chased down by a Cucurucho in the dead of night.
Every part of his body complained as he bolted down the alley, his rare leather boots sullied with mud and other filth Chayanne didn't want to number. He couldn’t bother cringing at how dirty his shoes have become when a nightmare on two legs is running after him.
Chayanne's knees and muscles burned with exhaustion, his body weight growing tenfold with every passing second but he couldn't afford to stop.
It was a losing game but Chayanne would be damned if he didn't even try escaping.
Taking a sharp turn to the left, Chayanne cursed as he almost slipped on a puddle. With adrenaline rampaging in his veins, he easily ignored the acute pain shooting a jolt up to his spine.
Shit, he can’t hear where his friends are. Ezekiel and Richas normally would have reigned chaos wherever they were, the quietness in the alleys made him uneasy. Did they get caught already?
He needs to find someone.
Sparing a look over his shoulder, Chayanne watched as the bastard latched onto the wall. Its sharp black nails glimmering in the moonlight before it dug through the concrete wall before easily closing the distance between them with a leap. He yelped, narrowly dodging its claws as he took another turn.
"H-Hey, can we talk about this?! I-I'm the son of an Honorary Human, for god's sake!"
The Cucurucho let out a guttural screech to which Chayanne could interpret as a firm no if it bothered speaking to him clearly. Then, he heard a sizzle, it was brief but he swore he felt the acid’s skin-burning warmth whizz past the shell of his ears.
If the Cucurucho were to aim a little to the left, his ear would have melted straight off.
At the realization, Chayanne stumbles only to barely catch himself before he faceplants to the floor.
The air felt far too cold when he greedily inhaled them; it almost made him want to hurl, his head light as he shot down the hall to take another turn to his right yet his tears burned his eyes when it filled his vision.
“Go die! You son of a bitch!”
He then heard someone cursing from a far, followed by the echo of metal falling onto the ground. His brain soon processed Richas's voice, cursing from a distance and Chayanne immediately regretted heading the same way his friend might be.
Richas is already being chased, if their pathways collide, there’s a guarantee that at least one of them will get captured. It's most likely him since his friend is more athletically inclined despite being shorter.
Something about the difference in the air or whatever the fuck Ezekiel comes up with.
There’s a stacked cluster of empty boxes at the end of the alley he turned to and his heart sang with glee. There’s no other reason for there to be a makeshift wall in the slums if not to pose as a warning for other people to not cross the boundaries or they’ll regret it.
With targets easier to capture, maybe this fucker will stop bothering him.
The Cucurucho just happened to stumble upon them anyways, he did no wrong for trying to survive. He doubts the people back then retained their humanity.
He crossed his arms in front of his face as he ran through the cardboard wall. Upon his sudden entry, a few squatters who were sleeping peacefully, awoke with a start. They started to shout profanities at him but it turned into panicked screams once the monster’s attention had turned to them.
He didn’t even bother looking over his shoulder and scrambled to leave the scene as the Cucurucho grew busy with the nearby humans, completely giving up on him, to which Chayanne cheered for. He didn’t want to see its maw divided into two and expanded wide to accommodate its captures before gruesomely crushing them.
There’s also another reason why he turned deaf to their horrors and blind to their deaths but he’s not sure he wanted to acknowledge it yet.
A dumpster stood, a few steps from him and he made no hesitation in jumping in.
Regret came late when the wet cardboards touched his skin and his school uniform. It only filled his body when the stench of mixed odors—the acidic tangs of puke, rotten eggs, and something else he can’t figure out, surrounded him. His skin crawled with disgust but his survival takes priority and he begrudgingly sank into the pile.
Chayanne had to fight the urge to hurl as his eyes jumped to every trash surrounding him. Styrofoams, cardboard boxes, plastics holding some nasty items he didn't even wanna bother thinking about. Expired food capsules and the puke-stained t-shirt a few inches from his knees encouraged tears to fill his eyes again.
Being the son of an Honorary Human, Chayanne never had a day where he'd be in the presence of rubbish nor did he have to suffer with hiding in places ridden with disease and germs.
His nanny has always scolded him about his prideful behavior, calling him out for refusing to learn about important real life skills. Now that he's seen and felt his lowest, there's nothing but remorse clamping around his heart.
Now that he swam in the gross pile he once thought he’d never see, Chayanne regretted not being thankful for his comfortable lifestyle.
If he gets out of this alive, Chayanne will apologize to her for his behaviors.
He didn't know how many minutes he's been confined in that space, all he knows is that he's been in that filth for longer than he wanted to. Soon, he rose to leave the metal container, grimacing at the sight of wet rubbish sticking onto his clothes even after leaving.
He's going to swim in alcohol and scrub his skin red the moment he comes home.
Richas's face immediately pops up in front of his mind and Chayanne is already running towards the direction he last heard his friend was. Ezekiel's location being unknown to him made Chayanne nervous, they're lanky and tall but they're as frail as a bubble. There’s no doubt in thinking they’ve been captured already.
Not even President Quackity, Richas's father, can save them the moment the Cucuruchos have loaded them into their spacecraft.
The night is cold and the moon is taking its throne in the middle of the sky, as he cautiously jogged down the alleys, Chayanne couldn't help but wonder if Quackity had sent his search party for Richas already. If they regrouped and stalled, will they be able to escape this nightmare once the president's guards arrive?
Surely, the man must've had the highest military officials deployed to find his son who was supposed to come home hours ago.
But if they're found, what would happen afterwards? War is a possibility but him and Ezekiel being torn away from Richas's life is a guarantee. Quackity, being the ever-loving father he is, would forever hold a grudge against them for endangering his sole blood and son.
At least we're alive . Chayanne optimistically thought to himself as he took a peak over the left side of the intersection he stumbled in.
Even if that were to happen, he's sure Richas will find a way to communicate with them. May it be through those ancient brick phones. With a little tinkering, Ezekiel can definitely make it functioning in the current era and leave it somewhere Richas can find or through the prehistoric machines they've read in books to send his regards through a series of beeps.
Soon, he arrived at the alley Richas was last heard from, looking around, he searched high and low for lingering Cucurucho either hanging on the wall like a spider or walking down the path.
The lack of evidence of people once inhabiting that particular area makes him nervous. It makes the hair on his arms stand in attention as he carefully searches out for a brown tuft of hair in the dim, wary of any guttural grunts that might permeate into the air. Is it possible that they’ve vacated the area knowing it's close to being found by the Cucuruchos?
He didn't want to get captured by them but at the same time, he wanted to save his friends.
Just a few years after Quackity became president, whispers of stories of abductions and deaths spread from the slums and high up in the villas, the unfortunate souls screaming profanities at their leader for being a coward, for letting the aliens terrorize them and pick them out every three months. For what reasons? He doesn’t know, Quackity apprehended the gossip monger and turned down the accusations, they believed him.
Because why would their hero sacrifice his own kind after he spoke of freedom for humanity?
Yet now as he wanders the slums, obsessively looking over his shoulders to see if he’s being followed, he finds himself distraught over the truth their so-called hero tried to hide.
A sick squelch broke him out of his trance, grimacing at the soft squish his feet had sunk into.
Shit… quite literally. Chayanne dared to lift up his shoe to see a dark brown matter now hugging the ridges of his shoe.
His skin prickled with goosebumps and he hops with one leg up towards the nearest staircase to rub the stain off of his shoes when he hears a hushed argument with voices sounding far too human and young than what a Cucurucho should sound like.
Relief flushed out his worries and he rushed towards the voices of his friend.
One step after the other, he soon found himself staring at the back of a familiar shade of black and curls. Chayanne’s heart leaped with joy but he held back the urge to jump to his friends’ aid, his eyes immediately darted up to see if there’s any Cucurucho waiting for him to take the bait but instead the moon stared back at him as if to condemn his cowardice.
You should be saving your friend , it seems to say and Chayanne scowled.
The clearing is lit enough for him to see if he squints hard enough, he was at a disadvantage against creatures tenfold his level of senses. Every human who’d be in his shoes would choose to run away in fear of being captured, even while now he’s crouching behind a trash bin, all of his muscles screaming for the unseen horror lurking somewhere in the shadows.
Even if his body refused him from moving to save his friends, Chayanne pushed himself up to leave the safety of the bin to sneak towards his friend.
"Richas!" Chayanne whisper-shouts but the kid doesn't respond, to his confusion.
A hand then grabbed his collar in a tight grip and he soon found himself pinned onto the wall with a hand clamped tightly onto his mouth. He immediately processed Ezekiel's panicked eyes in the dark, along with their messy onyx hair.
They had no concerning wounds but their favorite hoodie has been soiled to the nines that he’s sure even the greatest washing machine has no match for it.
"Don't make a sound, damn it!"
Ezekiel's eyes then wandered to Richas whose crestfallen head jumped to look into their direction with his face smothered with mud and a bleeding forehead, eyes squinting to detect their shadows.
They both stood in tense silence, ears picking up a far away warble from somewhere. The noise urged the goosebumps in his arms and he frantically searched for a Cucurucho in the vicinity.
They heard one of them speak just down the alley in a language he has no chance of ever understanding and their heads snapped towards the sound. His heartbeat echoing deep in his skull as his breathing grew uneven.
"Hey kid, you still not going to talk?"
"Fuck you!" Then a grunt, followed quickly by a wheeze before a coughing fit.
Chayanne clenched his hands at the sound, gaze falling to the floor as his lips quivered. He can hear his best friend get punched up a few miles from where he stands yet he couldn't do anything but listen. He turned back to Ezekiel whose eyes shimmered with tears, terrified out of their wits and pained by their own helplessness.
I want to help him is unspoken but understood by them and they shook their heads.
I can’t lose you too. Please stay. Their eyes told him as their grip on his wrists tightened. Chayanne could easily break free from his clutches but found himself unable to.
If he leaves to save Richas and potentially endanger them both, then Ezekiel would be forced to stand by and watch as both of their friends are taken away to who-knows-where with no chance of ever reconciling and Chayanne could never do that to them.
Averting his gaze, they immediately knew that they won and their grasp on his wrists loosened, a promise of later unspoken between the two of them and they waited.
Waited and waited until the gurgles and warbles silenced down, leaving the labored breath of their friend echoing from the clearing. The two of them risked a peak over the corner to see Richas looking up just in time to see them and they waved.
"Guys?" He mouthed, eyes wide in surprise and Chayanne almost felt insulted by this.
Ezekiel turned to him, conflict clear as day on his face. "What do we do?"
He hasn’t said it yet but they already knew what his answer is going to be, there’s a silent resignation glimmering in Ezekiel’s eyes and guilt plagued his heart for dragging them into their stupid plan in the first place.
"Let's go save him."
He didn't wait for the other teen's reply when he left the shadows to stalk towards Richas, who wiggled on the floor, both arms and ankles bound.
Chayanne pulled on his hoodie's cleaner sleeve to wipe away the grime and blood from Richas's face before reaching down to the bind on his wrists. With all his might, Chayanne attempted to push apart the metal cuffs on his friend’s wrists yet the electric current keeping them magnetic to each other proved it to be an impossible task.
"I'll go find something useful in the dumpster, don't die."
Ezekiel swiftly left the scene with barely a noise made. Chayanne debated on screaming at the teen to come back but then again, he's got nothing on the handcuffs, not even with his decent strength.
“You fuck! Why did you do that?!” Richas whisper-shouts, eyes glistening with tears. "Chayanne, you gotta escape!"
"Wha-what?! We came here to save your dumbass! I thought you'd be able to outrun these alien bastards!"
"Well I didn't and you guys did, now you’re sacrificing yourselves to save me. What? You want a fucking medal?!"
"Shut up and watch over Ezekiel, I need to look at this shit."
There were tears in his eyes but Chayanne could care less, focusing on his friend's handcuffs. He would have ran away like Richas told him to, his hands trembling violently and the sirens in his head rang louder in his skull yet he pushed through the suffocating fear to help them.
"They didn't leave me here for a reason, you dumb shit. Take Ezekiel and go!" He gasped, crystalline tears shimmering under the moonlight. “ Please , Chay.”
"Don't you dare tell me what to do! I'm shitting my pants right now but guess what? I'm still trying to free you from this bullshit!"
Richas's eyes were glistening under the moonlight with every tear shooting needles into his heart, almost urging his own to blur his vision.
"We promised alright? We'll all die older together and I'm seeing it through. If we die tomorrow, then so be it, at least I'm with you."
If he had the time to joke around, he'd think back to the perfectionist prick from the theater club who picked on his every action and think she'd cry at how touching the scene is but he doesn't and he throws the thought at the very back of his head.
Emotions clogged up in his throat as he rubbed the pads of his thumbs on Richas' bloodied knuckles and laughed lightly. It made him feel better that the kid managed to fight them off at least once that night.
"Stop being poetic on me, prick. It's scary."
"Oh shut up."
For a split second, all worries became non-existent and the world only revolves around them, Chay and Richas. There was a loud absence between them but for now, it was just the two of them.
But as Chayanne was about to point out Ezekiel's whereabouts, Richas' laugh then starts to distort, their tones stretching over the border of low and high pitches. He barely processed the panic-stricken expression the other kid now carries, his brain more sluggish that it used to be.
That's weird…
Chayanne looked down for any weird substances spread thinly beneath him or on his fingers but found none.
He could see Richas screaming something at him, his eyes wide with panic as tears flowed freely down his cheeks but he couldn't hear anything but a growing static noise. When his vision starts to swirl, did he realizes what was happening to him.
His body froze all over when he felt the dull but echoing prick of a small syringe still attached to his nape. When—
Shit…! Ezekiel!
"Cha…nne!"
Richas' voice echoed loudly through the fuzz in his ears only to be drowned back as quickly as it surfaced. He feels like tipping back and he's just so sleepy, he might just do it.
But before his body fell backward, his heart started to race as dread petrified him frozen, the hair on his neck standing in full attention. He needed to find where Ezekiel was. Chayanne sluggishly looked around, body swaying and sagging until he saw a particular shade of charcoal black hair getting carried out of the alley by a Cucurucho.
They never left, they were waiting for them to save Richas.
He knew but…
"E-Ezekiel...!"
He screams out but it was slurred. Chayanne takes a step forward only for his balance to disperse as soon as his other foot steps forward. The dull ache of his head now rattles his skull deep and he halts, cradling his head with a hand. He felt something grab his arm and he traced it back to its owner and immediately connecting gaze with beady black eyes.
There were black-lined lips curled into an unsettling smile greeting him and the fuzziness in his mind grew tenfold but in the middle of the haze, his veteran professor's voice rang in his head, albeit frayed.
"Once their extra limbs break away from their backs and latch onto you, there is no going back."
He watched as the portion of its back cracked open into two and rose above its shoulder.
The Cucurucho's tentacles then extended and wound themselves around his waist in an iron grip, only then did pain explode into his system and rush through his bloodstreams like a virus infecting every nerve and roasting them raw. It was some kind of response their tendrils' injects into its prey, he remembers reading.
Agony became all that he felt before his body eventually surrendered to the tranquilizer.
An annoying ringing in his ears greeted him when he grew conscious along with a muffled shouting that reminded him a lot of Richas, screaming inaudible in the background. Chayanne groaned as his head pulsed and pounded harder than an angry mother on her son's door.
The blurry white lights fading in and out burned his eyes when he cracked them open.
Suddenly, everything became clear to him as if the fog was washed off of his senses, the commotion around him cleared up to introduce him to familiar and foreign vocabularies, his brain could somehow process both, although the other takes a few moments before it processes in his head. Someone was speaking his tongue, hesitant and panic obvious in their voice while the other was aggressively screaming in Curutzch, the Cucurucho 's language.
It didn't take long for Chayanne to guess who is who.
"My father is President Quackity, you can't do this to me!"
"Ri-Richas, I don't think you should—"
A gurgly laugh echoed in the space. "You're so cute trying to threaten us, terran. What is he gonna do, start another war for the sake of his only son? I don't think so."
"He will and I will kill you, now let go of us!"
Chayanne's eyes caught the ever-continuous loop of white walls with grey and pale pink line patterns carved close to the floor, the scent permeating the hallways is unfamiliar but is definitely far better than the rubbish he jumped into.
He groaned softly, the panging headache echoing deep into his skull as he's forced to listen to the loud argument in the background only making it worse.
There's a dull buzz, almost mechanical, next to his ears and he turned to the side to see that it's the medical table he's been towed in. Almost instinctively, he tried to raise his wrists only to find them bound to the platform.
“You are breaking the rules by taking more than three humans!”
“Who cares about the rules? What’s that puppet gonna do?”
There's a Cucurucho walking beside him with its wide black beady eyes staring down at him and sharp hand clutching on the iron handle of the medical bed he's strapped in. Seeing him conscious, it made a warbled noise before peering up to the others.
"This guy is awake, we can drag him into the…"
Chayanne didn't understand the last one and he didn't like that, turning towards Richas who's more proficient with the language, only to see his face crunched in panic, causing him to grow anxious as well.
What are they planning to do with him?
He tugged on the binds with more power this time as his breathing grew labored and his heartbeat rose to echo in his ears.
"No… bring him to that crazy bitch… I don't think she minds."
A crazy person? His stomach churned painfully as the Cucurucho at the edge of his bed only stared down at him, almost cooing at him as he grew frantic in place. Its black rimmed lips are stretched up as if smiling at his misery, mocking and sending chills down his spine.
The fact that Cucuruchos does not share the same facial expressions as humans does, doesn't aid his ever growing panic. The bastard is always smiling at him, he doesn't know what indicators to watch for if it ever changes its mind and decided to tear him from limb to limb right there and now.
Is this how he's going to die? In the hands of a maniacal, Cucurucho torturer? He didn't even get to apologize to his nanny for his behavior nor will he ever get to thank her for sticking with him through his bullshit.
He heard Richas grunt behind him before a loud thud echoed in the hall. At the edge of his vision, he could see his puffed curls get pushed back down onto the table, its long claws digging on his cheeks, threatening to break skin but the boy could care less and growled out:
"What the hell are you planning to do with Chayanne, you bastard?!"
Ignoring his friend's scream, the Cucurucho guiding his table turned to the one overseeing the angry kid.
"You should…him."
"How so?"
Seeing his Cucurucho approach the other table had both him and Ezekiel screaming at it to go away but it ignored all threats and grabbed Richarlyson's left wrist cuff, which easily divorced from the platform.
"Like… this."
A sickening crunch followed by Richas's howls of pain made Chayanne's heart leap to his throat and he screamed for the other boy whose agonized shouts only grew louder and more horrified as another bone crack seared through the amused 'laughter' of the Cucurucho.
Richas' whimpers and gasps of pain fueled the rage now coursing through his bloodstream.
"GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM HIM, YOU FUCKERS!"
"This…is mad, isn’t he cute?”
"Oi, no touching the material. That crazy bitch will… head on the… if you do."
Chayanne's cheeks burned with humiliation and he clenched his fists.
He could never forgive these despicable creatures who came to invade and ruin his already broken planet. There’s bile burning at the back of his throat just hearing how little they think of humans. If this is how they spoke of them, he doesn’t even want to know what they do to the people they abduct.
He wanted to cry, he wanted to tear their arms off of their torsos or at least land a scratch on their skin but he’s helpless, the bind around him is foreign to his eyes, a new developed technology still unbeknownst to humanity which meant he wouldn't be able to break out of it—not that he could get out of regular cuffs but he definitely had more chances of getting rid of them.
“Is it gonna cry?”
“You…you should’ve held back from teasing the kid.”
In school where his title weighs more than the scrap of netherite in some of the regular rich kids’ watches, he was honorable and now, in the laboratory, these beings whose beady gaze somehow called him disgusting in a thousand languages, treated him like a mere toy to play around with.
He was used to using his title to get away with things but if Richas can’t weasel his way out and has already a few broken fingers within the first few hours in captivity, who's to say he'd be any safer than the heir of the Union?
“Let me go…”
“I’ll bring these two to their cells, I bet that crazy … would love to meet her new toy.”
His Cucurucho waved its hand to the right, the capsule door opened with a hiss and they halted.
His heart jumped to his throat as he slowly stray from his friends, adrenaline kicked in and Chayanne tugged against his binds, the urge to escape returning back to him with full force.
“Let me go!”
“Whe-where the fuck are you taking him?!” Richas screamed weakly.
"Chayanne… ! D-DON'T TAKE HIM AWAY FROM US! " Ezekiel exclaimed, lifting their head from the platform only to be pinned back down on the table when the Cucurucho hand wrapped around their throat.
“These kids sure are...”
"GET YOUR HANDS OFF OF MY FRIENDS, YOU FUCKS!"
"Look at the...fussing, I really wanna..."
Chayanne wanted to scream, wanted to break free from the binds pinning his body down, he wanted to do so many but can only execute so little. He could hear Ezekiel's wheezes and struggle yet he's helpless against the medical table.
Chayanne could only watch in terror as he’s pulled farther and farther away from his friends. He couldn't see their hair but he could hear their struggle descending down the hall.
“Ezekiel!”
He screamed but the metal doors closed before he could hear a reply, drowning him in the shadows. As if his resistance was a thread tethered to the others, it snapped and he fell limp on his bed, his labored breath bouncing around the hollow halls. A garbled noise crawled out of the alien’s throat, the sound almost akin to a laugh.
It made him tense up in place, eyes planted firmly on the creature, closely watching its sluggish movements for any indications of it attacking him in the dim but it only looked forward.
There’s a swift movement in the shadows but not towards him, the resounding chime that resonated in the hall is proof of that. A hiss sliced through the air as another entrance reveals itself in front of him. The transition from the dark hallway into the eerie dimness of the chamber made his skin crawl, his shoulders tensed.
He wasn’t given the chance to build another thought when the Cucurucho swiped its card on the scanner and opened the gate with a hiss to reveal an ambient atmospheric room littered with plants whilst keeping the creepy hospital vibe to it.
If you told Chayanne that this room with the eye pleasing earth-toned color palette and a pleasant yet foreign scent filling the air belongs to the so-called crazy lady of the U.tofia laboratory, he would never believe it.
"... I have brought you another rat."
Silence.
Then heels clack from his left and his head snapped towards the direction to see a woman covered from head to toe in black.
"Didn't I tell you to stop calling my children rats?"
It was immediately established that this woman is not a Cucurucho, she’s a different species.
She towers over the soldier with a head and a half difference. While the Cucuruchos tendrils are cloaked into their backs, she has raven black wings that gleamed majestically in the warm lights of the room. At the silence, she crossed her arms, the motion revealing her black-tipped fingers supporting sharp talons about an inch or two longer than the white bear-like alien in front of him.
She wore a huge onyx summer hat with holes for her tall furry ears reminding him of the extinct fennec fox he once saw in the books Richarlyson’s dad has given him but what caught his attention further was the black sheer fabric hanging from its brim like a curtain, hiding the rest of her features from him in this lighting and it made his stomach churn.
They were taught about the many species humans are aware of and what their capabilities are. Being unable to find out what the woman’s kind, greatly unsettles him.
The woman tuts, surprising him at how human-like she’s acting, before turning her body to him.
"Isn't it rude for humans to stare at someone so openly?"
The sudden English surprised him, even more so the warmth her voice gave him. It almost made him falter.
"I appreciate curiosity and respect those who question the unknown but this is a bit…"
"You know English?"
He could sense the woman raise an eyebrow at that—if she even has one. "Someone taught me back then, it's extremely helpful when you experiment on humans you know?"
With that, the facade of casualness broke and Chayanne is reminded once more of his unfortunate predicament.
But maybe, this person isn't as nefarious as the Cucuruchos says she is. If so, then maybe he could befriend the woman no matter the cost, he needs intel for them to be able to escape this damned place.
To do that he must tread carefully. He knows he's most likely the luckier kid between the three of them, he shouldn't waste such a chance like this.
And so, he laughed nervously.
"It definitely is."
Looking at both of them, the Cucurucho unclasps his cuffs with a wave of the hand and they break. He caressed the angry red marks around his wrists, eyeing the alien.
Why did he release him anyway?
"I'll leave now. Don't…so soon."
The door shuts with a hiss and dread fills his body, stomach stirring so tightly he thinks he might just puke from the amount of anxiety he's feeling.
Chayanne turned to the woman warily, shrinking into his shirt as much as he could but she paid no heed to him, busy tending to god knows what on her tablet. Probably her checklist of torture techniques that can be used for children.
He shivered at the thought. He hopes it's not the case.
The silence stretching between them didn't help the growing anxiety in his churning stomach. Watching her swipe and tap on her device so nonchalantly makes him want to hit his head on the bed, what is it in that damned tablet that seems more interesting than him?
What is she planning to do with him?
Then, she did something he didn't expect her to do. She reached up to her hat and removed it. Bouncy curls of chocolate brown hair fall to frame her face, without the sheen fabric draped over her face, his eyes met her beady grape violet-like eyes and found it staring back at him. His breath got lodged in his throat at the sight of three claw marks marrying her face, starting from her left temple and down to her cheekbone.
It was gruesome and at the same time, interested him. What creature has torn this woman's face up and why did they do it exactly?
But what stuck to him the most was the fact that her kind was never written on the textbooks, her origin is new, unknown. She's just like them with fair skin, thread-like hair, and a round nose yet the proud standing feathered ears at the side of her head and dot eyes told him otherwise.
"Since we'll be seeing each other often, how about we introduce ourselves?" A ghost-like smile tugged her lips, goosebumps prickled his skin at how human yet not-so-human she appears. "I'm Tr'x'in, but in human tongue, you can call me Kristin. How about you?"
Chayanne narrowed his eyes on her. "Chayanne. Are you going to hurt me badly?"
Her eyes widened at this, taken aback but she quickly recovered and let out a gurgly laugh.
Is she laughing because she's amazed or is she annoyed by him assuming things from what he heard?
"I'm not as cruel as my nickname makes me to be. I'm kind enough to give you anesthesia and supply you with pain relievers after visiting hours."
Chayanne is at least thankful for that, but hearing that his body will be experimented on nonetheless didn't escape him. Seeing the absolute fear written clearly on his face, Kristin continued.
"We're going to have simple exercises and tasks for now until next month." Chayanne flinched when Kristin stalked towards him, painfully slow, like a predator about to pounce on its cornered prey. "I'm starting with extracting your blood, I need to know what your body is compatible with."
He didn’t even get to react when she grabbed his wrist and ripped the sleeves of his uniform with the other hand. Seeing the sharpness of her talons pushing against his flesh, he screwed his mouth shut and watched her pull out a small glass tube with an ominous looking black cork from the pockets of her coat.
It was like those devices that prick your finger tips when taking blood samples but the huge tube attached to it told him it’ll do more than breaking skin.
When the cork lay flat on the fold of his arm, his heartbeat jumped to his throat. Everything in his body screamed at him to escape, to pull away from the woman or to at least scream at her to leave him alone but her sharp talons dug deeper into his arm as if to warn him.
Don’t play around is left unsaid but Chayanne could hear it.
“Don’t be afraid, it doesn’t hurt that much.” The wide smile made his body freeze all over. “I won’t even take that many.”
Chapter Text
It was a mistake trying to explore the slums.
No, it was bound to end badly for privileged children who dared to leave the comfort of their homes. But being beaten down by the angered people of the slums is far better than being chased down by a Cucurucho in the dead of night.
Every part of his body complained as he bolted down the alley, his rare leather boots sullied with mud and other filth Chayanne didn't want to number. He couldn’t bother cringing at how dirty his shoes have become when a nightmare on two legs is running after him.
Chayanne's knees and muscles burned with exhaustion, his body weight growing tenfold with every passing second but he couldn't afford to stop.
It was a losing game but Chayanne would be damned if he didn't even try escaping.
Taking a sharp turn to the left, Chayanne cursed as he almost slipped on a puddle. With adrenaline rampaging in his veins, he easily ignored the acute pain shooting a jolt up to his spine.
Shit, he can’t hear where his friends are. Ezekiel and Richas normally would have reigned chaos wherever they were, the quietness in the alleys made him uneasy. Did they get caught already?
He needs to find someone.
Sparing a look over his shoulder, Chayanne watched as the bastard latched onto the wall. Its sharp black nails glimmering in the moonlight before it dug through the concrete wall before easily closing the distance between them with a leap. He yelped, narrowly dodging its claws as he took another turn.
"H-Hey, can we talk about this?! I-I'm the son of an Honorary Human, for god's sake!"
The Cucurucho let out a guttural screech to which Chayanne could interpret as a firm no if it bothered speaking to him clearly. Then, he heard a sizzle, it was brief but he swore he felt the acid’s skin-burning warmth whizz past the shell of his ears.
If the Cucurucho were to aim a little to the left, his ear would have melted straight off.
At the realization, Chayanne stumbles only to barely catch himself before he faceplants to the floor.
The air felt far too cold when he greedily inhaled them; it almost made him want to hurl, his head light as he shot down the hall to take another turn to his right yet his tears burned his eyes when it filled his vision.
“Go die! You son of a bitch!”
He then heard someone cursing from a far, followed by the echo of metal falling onto the ground. His brain soon processed Richas's voice, cursing from a distance and Chayanne immediately regretted heading the same way his friend might be.
Richas is already being chased, if their pathways collide, there’s a guarantee that at least one of them will get captured. It's most likely him since his friend is more athletically inclined despite being shorter.
Something about the difference in the air or whatever the fuck Ezekiel comes up with.
There’s a stacked cluster of empty boxes at the end of the alley he turned to and his heart sang with glee. There’s no other reason for there to be a makeshift wall in the slums if not to pose as a warning for other people to not cross the boundaries or they’ll regret it.
With targets easier to capture, maybe this fucker will stop bothering him.
The Cucurucho just happened to stumble upon them anyways, he did no wrong for trying to survive. He doubts the people back then retained their humanity.
He crossed his arms in front of his face as he ran through the cardboard wall. Upon his sudden entry, a few squatters who were sleeping peacefully, awoke with a start. They started to shout profanities at him but it turned into panicked screams once the monster’s attention had turned to them.
He didn’t even bother looking over his shoulder and scrambled to leave the scene as the Cucurucho grew busy with the nearby humans, completely giving up on him, to which Chayanne cheered for. He didn’t want to see its maw divided into two and expanded wide to accommodate its captures before gruesomely crushing them.
There’s also another reason why he turned deaf to their horrors and blind to their deaths but he’s not sure he wanted to acknowledge it yet.
A dumpster stood, a few steps from him and he made no hesitation in jumping in.
Regret came late when the wet cardboards touched his skin and his school uniform. It only filled his body when the stench of mixed odors—the acidic tangs of puke, rotten eggs, and something else he can’t figure out, surrounded him. His skin crawled with disgust but his survival takes priority and he begrudgingly sank into the pile.
Chayanne had to fight the urge to hurl as his eyes jumped to every trash surrounding him. Styrofoams, cardboard boxes, plastics holding some nasty items he didn't even wanna bother thinking about. Expired food capsules and the puke-stained t-shirt a few inches from his knees encouraged tears to fill his eyes again.
Being the son of an Honorary Human, Chayanne never had a day where he'd be in the presence of rubbish nor did he have to suffer with hiding in places ridden with disease and germs.
His nanny has always scolded him about his prideful behavior, calling him out for refusing to learn about important real life skills. Now that he's seen and felt his lowest, there's nothing but remorse clamping around his heart.
Now that he swam in the gross pile he once thought he’d never see, Chayanne regretted not being thankful for his comfortable lifestyle.
If he gets out of this alive, Chayanne will apologize to her for his behaviors.
He didn't know how many minutes he's been confined in that space, all he knows is that he's been in that filth for longer than he wanted to. Soon, he rose to leave the metal container, grimacing at the sight of wet rubbish sticking onto his clothes even after leaving.
He's going to swim in alcohol and scrub his skin red the moment he comes home.
Richas's face immediately pops up in front of his mind and Chayanne is already running towards the direction he last heard his friend was. Ezekiel's location being unknown to him made Chayanne nervous, they're lanky and tall but they're as frail as a bubble. There’s no doubt in thinking they’ve been captured already.
Not even President Quackity, Richas's father, can save them the moment the Cucuruchos have loaded them into their spacecraft.
The night is cold and the moon is taking its throne in the middle of the sky, as he cautiously jogged down the alleys, Chayanne couldn't help but wonder if Quackity had sent his search party for Richas already. If they regrouped and stalled, will they be able to escape this nightmare once the president's guards arrive?
Surely, the man must've had the highest military officials deployed to find his son who was supposed to come home hours ago.
But if they're found, what would happen afterwards? War is a possibility but him and Ezekiel being torn away from Richas's life is a guarantee. Quackity, being the ever-loving father he is, would forever hold a grudge against them for endangering his sole blood and son.
At least we're alive . Chayanne optimistically thought to himself as he took a peak over the left side of the intersection he stumbled in.
Even if that were to happen, he's sure Richas will find a way to communicate with them. May it be through those ancient brick phones. With a little tinkering, Ezekiel can definitely make it functioning in the current era and leave it somewhere Richas can find or through the prehistoric machines they've read in books to send his regards through a series of beeps.
Soon, he arrived at the alley Richas was last heard from, looking around, he searched high and low for lingering Cucurucho either hanging on the wall like a spider or walking down the path.
The lack of evidence of people once inhabiting that particular area makes him nervous. It makes the hair on his arms stand in attention as he carefully searches out for a brown tuft of hair in the dim, wary of any guttural grunts that might permeate into the air. Is it possible that they’ve vacated the area knowing it's close to being found by the Cucuruchos?
He didn't want to get captured by them but at the same time, he wanted to save his friends.
Just a few years after Quackity became president, whispers of stories of abductions and deaths spread from the slums and high up in the villas, the unfortunate souls screaming profanities at their leader for being a coward, for letting the aliens terrorize them and pick them out every three months. For what reasons? He doesn’t know, Quackity apprehended the gossip monger and turned down the accusations, they believed him.
Because why would their hero sacrifice his own kind after he spoke of freedom for humanity?
Yet now as he wanders the slums, obsessively looking over his shoulders to see if he’s being followed, he finds himself distraught over the truth their so-called hero tried to hide.
A sick squelch broke him out of his trance, grimacing at the soft squish his feet had sunk into.
Shit… quite literally. Chayanne dared to lift up his shoe to see a dark brown matter now hugging the ridges of his shoe.
His skin prickled with goosebumps and he hops with one leg up towards the nearest staircase to rub the stain off of his shoes when he hears a hushed argument with voices sounding far too human and young than what a Cucurucho should sound like.
Relief flushed out his worries and he rushed towards the voices of his friend.
One step after the other, he soon found himself staring at the back of a familiar shade of black and curls. Chayanne’s heart leaped with joy but he held back the urge to jump to his friends’ aid, his eyes immediately darted up to see if there’s any Cucurucho waiting for him to take the bait but instead the moon stared back at him as if to condemn his cowardice.
You should be saving your friend , it seems to say and Chayanne scowled.
The clearing is lit enough for him to see if he squints hard enough, he was at a disadvantage against creatures tenfold his level of senses. Every human who’d be in his shoes would choose to run away in fear of being captured, even while now he’s crouching behind a trash bin, all of his muscles screaming for the unseen horror lurking somewhere in the shadows.
Even if his body refused him from moving to save his friends, Chayanne pushed himself up to leave the safety of the bin to sneak towards his friend.
"Richas!" Chayanne whisper-shouts but the kid doesn't respond, to his confusion.
A hand then grabbed his collar in a tight grip and he soon found himself pinned onto the wall with a hand clamped tightly onto his mouth. He immediately processed Ezekiel's panicked eyes in the dark, along with their messy onyx hair.
They had no concerning wounds but their favorite hoodie has been soiled to the nines that he’s sure even the greatest washing machine has no match for it.
"Don't make a sound, damn it!"
Ezekiel's eyes then wandered to Richas whose crestfallen head jumped to look into their direction with his face smothered with mud and a bleeding forehead, eyes squinting to detect their shadows.
They both stood in tense silence, ears picking up a far away warble from somewhere. The noise urged the goosebumps in his arms and he frantically searched for a Cucurucho in the vicinity.
They heard one of them speak just down the alley in a language he has no chance of ever understanding and their heads snapped towards the sound. His heartbeat echoing deep in his skull as his breathing grew uneven.
"Hey kid, you still not going to talk?"
"Fuck you!" Then a grunt, followed quickly by a wheeze before a coughing fit.
Chayanne clenched his hands at the sound, gaze falling to the floor as his lips quivered. He can hear his best friend get punched up a few miles from where he stands yet he couldn't do anything but listen. He turned back to Ezekiel whose eyes shimmered with tears, terrified out of their wits and pained by their own helplessness.
I want to help him is unspoken but understood by them and they shook their heads.
I can’t lose you too. Please stay. Their eyes told him as their grip on his wrists tightened. Chayanne could easily break free from his clutches but found himself unable to.
If he leaves to save Richas and potentially endanger them both, then Ezekiel would be forced to stand by and watch as both of their friends are taken away to who-knows-where with no chance of ever reconciling and Chayanne could never do that to them.
Averting his gaze, they immediately knew that they won and their grasp on his wrists loosened, a promise of later unspoken between the two of them and they waited.
Waited and waited until the gurgles and warbles silenced down, leaving the labored breath of their friend echoing from the clearing. The two of them risked a peak over the corner to see Richas looking up just in time to see them and they waved.
"Guys?" He mouthed, eyes wide in surprise and Chayanne almost felt insulted by this.
Ezekiel turned to him, conflict clear as day on his face. "What do we do?"
He hasn’t said it yet but they already knew what his answer is going to be, there’s a silent resignation glimmering in Ezekiel’s eyes and guilt plagued his heart for dragging them into their stupid plan in the first place.
"Let's go save him."
He didn't wait for the other teen's reply when he left the shadows to stalk towards Richas, who wiggled on the floor, both arms and ankles bound.
Chayanne pulled on his hoodie's cleaner sleeve to wipe away the grime and blood from Richas's face before reaching down to the bind on his wrists. With all his might, Chayanne attempted to push apart the metal cuffs on his friend’s wrists yet the electric current keeping them magnetic to each other proved it to be an impossible task.
"I'll go find something useful in the dumpster, don't die."
Ezekiel swiftly left the scene with barely a noise made. Chayanne debated on screaming at the teen to come back but then again, he's got nothing on the handcuffs, not even with his decent strength.
“You fuck! Why did you do that?!” Richas whisper-shouts, eyes glistening with tears. "Chayanne, you gotta escape!"
"Wha-what?! We came here to save your dumbass! I thought you'd be able to outrun these alien bastards!"
"Well I didn't and you guys did, now you’re sacrificing yourselves to save me. What? You want a fucking medal?!"
"Shut up and watch over Ezekiel, I need to look at this shit."
There were tears in his eyes but Chayanne could care less, focusing on his friend's handcuffs. He would have ran away like Richas told him to, his hands trembling violently and the sirens in his head rang louder in his skull yet he pushed through the suffocating fear to help them.
"They didn't leave me here for a reason, you dumb shit. Take Ezekiel and go!" He gasped, crystalline tears shimmering under the moonlight. “ Please , Chay.”
"Don't you dare tell me what to do! I'm shitting my pants right now but guess what? I'm still trying to free you from this bullshit!"
Richas's eyes were glistening under the moonlight with every tear shooting needles into his heart, almost urging his own to blur his vision.
"We promised alright? We'll all die older together and I'm seeing it through. If we die tomorrow, then so be it, at least I'm with you."
If he had the time to joke around, he'd think back to the perfectionist prick from the theater club who picked on his every action and think she'd cry at how touching the scene is but he doesn't and he throws the thought at the very back of his head.
Emotions clogged up in his throat as he rubbed the pads of his thumbs on Richas' bloodied knuckles and laughed lightly. It made him feel better that the kid managed to fight them off at least once that night.
"Stop being poetic on me, prick. It's scary."
"Oh shut up."
For a split second, all worries became non-existent and the world only revolves around them, Chay and Richas. There was a loud absence between them but for now, it was just the two of them.
But as Chayanne was about to point out Ezekiel's whereabouts, Richas' laugh then starts to distort, their tones stretching over the border of low and high pitches. He barely processed the panic-stricken expression the other kid now carries, his brain more sluggish that it used to be.
That's weird…
Chayanne looked down for any weird substances spread thinly beneath him or on his fingers but found none.
He could see Richas screaming something at him, his eyes wide with panic as tears flowed freely down his cheeks but he couldn't hear anything but a growing static noise. When his vision starts to swirl, did he realizes what was happening to him.
His body froze all over when he felt the dull but echoing prick of a small syringe still attached to his nape. When—
Shit…! Ezekiel!
"Cha…nne!"
Richas' voice echoed loudly through the fuzz in his ears only to be drowned back as quickly as it surfaced. He feels like tipping back and he's just so sleepy, he might just do it.
But before his body fell backward, his heart started to race as dread petrified him frozen, the hair on his neck standing in full attention. He needed to find where Ezekiel was. Chayanne sluggishly looked around, body swaying and sagging until he saw a particular shade of charcoal black hair getting carried out of the alley by a Cucurucho.
They never left, they were waiting for them to save Richas.
He knew but…
"E-Ezekiel...!"
He screams out but it was slurred. Chayanne takes a step forward only for his balance to disperse as soon as his other foot steps forward. The dull ache of his head now rattles his skull deep and he halts, cradling his head with a hand. He felt something grab his arm and he traced it back to its owner and immediately connecting gaze with beady black eyes.
There were black-lined lips curled into an unsettling smile greeting him and the fuzziness in his mind grew tenfold but in the middle of the haze, his veteran professor's voice rang in his head, albeit frayed.
"Once their extra limbs break away from their backs and latch onto you, there is no going back."
He watched as the portion of its back cracked open into two and rose above its shoulder.
The Cucurucho's tentacles then extended and wound themselves around his waist in an iron grip, only then did pain explode into his system and rush through his bloodstreams like a virus infecting every nerve and roasting them raw. It was some kind of response their tendrils' injects into its prey, he remembers reading.
Agony became all that he felt before his body eventually surrendered to the tranquilizer.
An annoying ringing in his ears greeted him when he grew conscious along with a muffled shouting that reminded him a lot of Richas, screaming inaudible in the background. Chayanne groaned as his head pulsed and pounded harder than an angry mother on her son's door.
The blurry white lights fading in and out burned his eyes when he cracked them open.
Suddenly, everything became clear to him as if the fog was washed off of his senses, the commotion around him cleared up to introduce him to familiar and foreign vocabularies, his brain could somehow process both, although the other takes a few moments before it processes in his head. Someone was speaking his tongue, hesitant and panic obvious in their voice while the other was aggressively screaming in Curutzch, the Cucurucho 's language.
It didn't take long for Chayanne to guess who is who.
"My father is President Quackity, you can't do this to me!"
"Ri-Richas, I don't think you should—"
A gurgly laugh echoed in the space. "You're so cute trying to threaten us, terran. What is he gonna do, start another war for the sake of his only son? I don't think so."
"He will and I will kill you, now let go of us!"
Chayanne's eyes caught the ever-continuous loop of white walls with grey and pale pink line patterns carved close to the floor, the scent permeating the hallways is unfamiliar but is definitely far better than the rubbish he jumped into.
He groaned softly, the panging headache echoing deep into his skull as he's forced to listen to the loud argument in the background only making it worse.
There's a dull buzz, almost mechanical, next to his ears and he turned to the side to see that it's the medical table he's been towed in. Almost instinctively, he tried to raise his wrists only to find them bound to the platform.
“You are breaking the rules by taking more than three humans!”
“Who cares about the rules? What’s that puppet gonna do?”
There's a Cucurucho walking beside him with its wide black beady eyes staring down at him and sharp hand clutching on the iron handle of the medical bed he's strapped in. Seeing him conscious, it made a warbled noise before peering up to the others.
"This guy is awake, we can drag him into the…"
Chayanne didn't understand the last one and he didn't like that, turning towards Richas who's more proficient with the language, only to see his face crunched in panic, causing him to grow anxious as well.
What are they planning to do with him?
He tugged on the binds with more power this time as his breathing grew labored and his heartbeat rose to echo in his ears.
"No… bring him to that crazy bitch… I don't think she minds."
A crazy person? His stomach churned painfully as the Cucurucho at the edge of his bed only stared down at him, almost cooing at him as he grew frantic in place. Its black rimmed lips are stretched up as if smiling at his misery, mocking and sending chills down his spine.
The fact that Cucuruchos does not share the same facial expressions as humans does, doesn't aid his ever growing panic. The bastard is always smiling at him, he doesn't know what indicators to watch for if it ever changes its mind and decided to tear him from limb to limb right there and now.
Is this how he's going to die? In the hands of a maniacal, Cucurucho torturer? He didn't even get to apologize to his nanny for his behavior nor will he ever get to thank her for sticking with him through his bullshit.
He heard Richas grunt behind him before a loud thud echoed in the hall. At the edge of his vision, he could see his puffed curls get pushed back down onto the table, its long claws digging on his cheeks, threatening to break skin but the boy could care less and growled out:
"What the hell are you planning to do with Chayanne, you bastard?!"
Ignoring his friend's scream, the Cucurucho guiding his table turned to the one overseeing the angry kid.
"You should…him."
"How so?"
Seeing his Cucurucho approach the other table had both him and Ezekiel screaming at it to go away but it ignored all threats and grabbed Richarlyson's left wrist cuff, which easily divorced from the platform.
"Like… this."
A sickening crunch followed by Richas's howls of pain made Chayanne's heart leap to his throat and he screamed for the other boy whose agonized shouts only grew louder and more horrified as another bone crack seared through the amused 'laughter' of the Cucurucho.
Richas' whimpers and gasps of pain fueled the rage now coursing through his bloodstream.
"GET THE FUCK AWAY FROM HIM, YOU FUCKERS!"
"This…is mad, isn’t he cute?”
"Oi, no touching the material. That crazy bitch will… head on the… if you do."
Chayanne's cheeks burned with humiliation and he clenched his fists.
He could never forgive these despicable creatures who came to invade and ruin his already broken planet. There’s bile burning at the back of his throat just hearing how little they think of humans. If this is how they spoke of them, he doesn’t even want to know what they do to the people they abduct.
He wanted to cry, he wanted to tear their arms off of their torsos or at least land a scratch on their skin but he’s helpless, the bind around him is foreign to his eyes, a new developed technology still unbeknownst to humanity which meant he wouldn't be able to break out of it—not that he could get out of regular cuffs but he definitely had more chances of getting rid of them.
“Is it gonna cry?”
“You…you should’ve held back from teasing the kid.”
In school where his title weighs more than the scrap of netherite in some of the regular rich kids’ watches, he was honorable and now, in the laboratory, these beings whose beady gaze somehow called him disgusting in a thousand languages, treated him like a mere toy to play around with.
He was used to using his title to get away with things but if Richas can’t weasel his way out and has already a few broken fingers within the first few hours in captivity, who's to say he'd be any safer than the heir of the Union?
“Let me go…”
“I’ll bring these two to their cells, I bet that crazy … would love to meet her new toy.”
His Cucurucho waved its hand to the right, the capsule door opened with a hiss and they halted.
His heart jumped to his throat as he slowly stray from his friends, adrenaline kicked in and Chayanne tugged against his binds, the urge to escape returning back to him with full force.
“Let me go!”
“Whe-where the fuck are you taking him?!” Richas screamed weakly.
"Chayanne… ! D-DON'T TAKE HIM AWAY FROM US! " Ezekiel exclaimed, lifting their head from the platform only to be pinned back down on the table when the Cucurucho hand wrapped around their throat.
“These kids sure are...”
"GET YOUR HANDS OFF OF MY FRIENDS, YOU FUCKS!"
"Look at the...fussing, I really wanna..."
Chayanne wanted to scream, wanted to break free from the binds pinning his body down, he wanted to do so many but can only execute so little. He could hear Ezekiel's wheezes and struggle yet he's helpless against the medical table.
Chayanne could only watch in terror as he’s pulled farther and farther away from his friends. He couldn't see their hair but he could hear their struggle descending down the hall.
“Ezekiel!”
He screamed but the metal doors closed before he could hear a reply, drowning him in the shadows. As if his resistance was a thread tethered to the others, it snapped and he fell limp on his bed, his labored breath bouncing around the hollow halls. A garbled noise crawled out of the alien’s throat, the sound almost akin to a laugh.
It made him tense up in place, eyes planted firmly on the creature, closely watching its sluggish movements for any indications of it attacking him in the dim but it only looked forward.
There’s a swift movement in the shadows but not towards him, the resounding chime that resonated in the hall is proof of that. A hiss sliced through the air as another entrance reveals itself in front of him. The transition from the dark hallway into the eerie dimness of the chamber made his skin crawl, his shoulders tensed.
He wasn’t given the chance to build another thought when the Cucurucho swiped its card on the scanner and opened the gate with a hiss to reveal an ambient atmospheric room littered with plants whilst keeping the creepy hospital vibe to it.
If you told Chayanne that this room with the eye pleasing earth-toned color palette and a pleasant yet foreign scent filling the air belongs to the so-called crazy lady of the U.tofia laboratory, he would never believe it.
"... I have brought you another rat."
Silence.
Then heels clack from his left and his head snapped towards the direction to see a woman covered from head to toe in black.
"Didn't I tell you to stop calling my children rats?"
It was immediately established that this woman is not a Cucurucho, she’s a different species.
She towers over the soldier with a head and a half difference. While the Cucuruchos tendrils are cloaked into their backs, she has raven black wings that gleamed majestically in the warm lights of the room. At the silence, she crossed her arms, the motion revealing her black-tipped fingers supporting sharp talons about an inch or two longer than the white bear-like alien in front of him.
She wore a huge onyx summer hat with holes for her tall furry ears reminding him of the extinct fennec fox he once saw in the books Richarlyson’s dad has given him but what caught his attention further was the black sheer fabric hanging from its brim like a curtain, hiding the rest of her features from him in this lighting and it made his stomach churn.
They were taught about the many species humans are aware of and what their capabilities are. Being unable to find out what the woman’s kind, greatly unsettles him.
The woman tuts, surprising him at how human-like she’s acting, before turning her body to him.
"Isn't it rude for humans to stare at someone so openly?"
The sudden English surprised him, even more so the warmth her voice gave him. It almost made him falter.
"I appreciate curiosity and respect those who question the unknown but this is a bit…"
"You know English?"
He could sense the woman raise an eyebrow at that—if she even has one. "Someone taught me back then, it's extremely helpful when you experiment on humans you know?"
With that, the facade of casualness broke and Chayanne is reminded once more of his unfortunate predicament.
But maybe, this person isn't as nefarious as the Cucuruchos says she is. If so, then maybe he could befriend the woman no matter the cost, he needs intel for them to be able to escape this damned place.
To do that he must tread carefully. He knows he's most likely the luckier kid between the three of them, he shouldn't waste such a chance like this.
And so, he laughed nervously.
"It definitely is."
Looking at both of them, the Cucurucho unclasps his cuffs with a wave of the hand and they break. He caressed the angry red marks around his wrists, eyeing the alien.
Why did he release him anyway?
"I'll leave now. Don't…so soon."
The door shuts with a hiss and dread fills his body, stomach stirring so tightly he thinks he might just puke from the amount of anxiety he's feeling.
Chayanne turned to the woman warily, shrinking into his shirt as much as he could but she paid no heed to him, busy tending to god knows what on her tablet. Probably her checklist of torture techniques that can be used for children.
He shivered at the thought. He hopes it's not the case.
The silence stretching between them didn't help the growing anxiety in his churning stomach. Watching her swipe and tap on her device so nonchalantly makes him want to hit his head on the bed, what is it in that damned tablet that seems more interesting than him?
What is she planning to do with him?
Then, she did something he didn't expect her to do. She reached up to her hat and removed it. Bouncy curls of chocolate brown hair fall to frame her face, without the sheen fabric draped over her face, his eyes met her beady grape violet-like eyes and found it staring back at him. His breath got lodged in his throat at the sight of three claw marks marrying her face, starting from her left temple and down to her cheekbone.
It was gruesome and at the same time, interested him. What creature has torn this woman's face up and why did they do it exactly?
But what stuck to him the most was the fact that her kind was never written on the textbooks, her origin is new, unknown. She's just like them with fair skin, thread-like hair, and a round nose yet the proud standing feathered ears at the side of her head and dot eyes told him otherwise.
"Since we'll be seeing each other often, how about we introduce ourselves?" A ghost-like smile tugged her lips, goosebumps prickled his skin at how human yet not-so-human she appears. "I'm Tr'x'in, but in human tongue, you can call me Kristin. How about you?"
Chayanne narrowed his eyes on her. "Chayanne. Are you going to hurt me badly?"
Her eyes widened at this, taken aback but she quickly recovered and let out a gurgly laugh.
Is she laughing because she's amazed or is she annoyed by him assuming things from what he heard?
"I'm not as cruel as my nickname makes me to be. I'm kind enough to give you anesthesia and supply you with pain relievers after visiting hours."
Chayanne is at least thankful for that, but hearing that his body will be experimented on nonetheless didn't escape him. Seeing the absolute fear written clearly on his face, Kristin continued.
"We're going to have simple exercises and tasks for now until next month." Chayanne flinched when Kristin stalked towards him, painfully slow, like a predator about to pounce on its cornered prey. "I'm starting with extracting your blood, I need to know what your body is compatible with."
He didn’t even get to react when she grabbed his wrist and ripped the sleeves of his uniform with the other hand. Seeing the sharpness of her talons pushing against his flesh, he screwed his mouth shut and watched her pull out a small glass tube with an ominous looking black cork from the pockets of her coat.
It was like those devices that prick your finger tips when taking blood samples but the huge tube attached to it told him it’ll do more than breaking skin.
When the cork lay flat on the fold of his arm, his heartbeat jumped to his throat. Everything in his body screamed at him to escape, to pull away from the woman or to at least scream at her to leave him alone but her sharp talons dug deeper into his arm as if to warn him.
Don’t play around is left unsaid but Chayanne could hear it.
“Don’t be afraid, it doesn’t hurt that much.” The wide smile made his body freeze all over. “I won’t even take that many.”
Chapter 3
Notes:
TW: use of drugs, slight violence.
also early update YIPEE
I'm still drawing up a Cucurucho design, I'll probably drop it with the next chapter :peepoSmile:
EDIT: I should mention that I'll try to update every week, friday or saturday, depending on your timezone :DD
Chapter Text
"Kid? You with me?"
He could hear Kristin's voice but it sounded far and muffled, as if cottons were stuffed in his ears and she’s talking to him from afar. His eye sight resembled the rest of his senses, blurred and disoriented. There's a dull throbbing on either side of his temples and he reaches up to cradle his forehead.
Chayanne tried tracking his last memories but the thick fog in his head made it impossible.
How long has it been already?
What happened?
Someone pried his eye open before shining a flashlight on it and he instinctively tried blinking the burn of the beam on his eye away but their fingers prevented him from doing so.
"Come on kid."
Slap! Slap! Slap!
What’s happening to me?
“I can’t help you if you’re ignoring me, kid. Just say something.”
"S-something…" He groaned out.
Holy fuck . The cruciating pain echoing loudly in his skull makes him want to hurl out his entire lunch.
A sharp jolt of pain got him gasping, body shrinking further in his bed at the brief flash of agony.
"Funny."
He doesn't even react when a syringe pricks the fold of his arms, the world a far away dream. A fuzzy one.
But just as he finds himself lost in the middle of his foggy mind, it clears quite as fast and he registers himself laying on the medical bed in the middle of Kristin's Laboratory, the woman in question was standing next to him, scribbling who-knows-what on her notepad.
She had forgone her hat today, her rich purple furry ears standing at attention on either side of her head.
"Are you still feeling some dizziness? Or is there something else?"
It's faint, he would've missed it but there's a tingly sensation on either of his temples, like there's something wiggling underneath his skin. The same could be said to his shoulder blades, he's positive there's something trying to break out of his back and his skin crawled
Wings, his subconscious whispered and he swiped the thought away as soon as it came.
There’s been plenty of Avians in the laboratory already, what use is it to add one more to the list? Kristin wouldn’t waste resources to replicate her genes and pass it onto him which technically makes him her son, right?
Staring at the woman, he decided that he shouldn’t rule the possibility. But why would she do it?
"Still a bit… far away, what happened?"
"Just the usual, get you under a few drugs to numb and knock you out cold. Tested something on your body so tell me if there's anything I should know."
"Just tingles in some areas, my back for example."
She stops writing and her wings puffs up, eyes flickering up to him and Chayanne swore he saw excitement flash in them.
"W-what?"
"Nothing, just thinking about how lucky I am to have you." The way she says it so softly made the hair on his nape stand. "You look just like him. "
"W-what?"
Chayanne tries, he really does, to ignore the last part the woman whispered to herself but it has already stoked his curiosity as well as the tight churn of disgust in his guts.
What is she trying to do to him exactly and who is him ?
"I'll send you back once you're good enough so just rest for a minute."
Kristin turned back to her table, large onyx wings fluttering behind her, almost excitedly.
Three weeks easily passed by while he stayed within the mundane flow of the laboratory's schedule for its lab rats but he wouldn't say it wasn't productive. After spending hours upon hours with the avian woman, he found out a few things about her.
Kristin stays true to her words no matter how bullshit they sounded, if she promised, then she will make sure she follows through. Like she told him on his first day, his first week was spent in her lab either lying down on his medical bed barely lucid after an examination or trying to find his limits, physically and mentally, as well as building muscles
Ever since she received his laboratory tests a week ago, she's been… ecstatic.
Not that she wasn't before but this enthusiasm is different.
There's a bounce in her steps and the manic look in her eyes seemed to have grown, she kept muttering in her language under her breath in quick succession, barely breathing in between hunched over his pinned down body. It was creepy and haunting. Chayanne finally understands why she was called crazy by the Cucuruchos on days like those.
But she's not always like that.
On a good day, she would pinch his cheeks and hover him like a mother hen.
In some way, it was oddly affectionate, dare he says familial. If you forget the fact that she hurts him.
Their relationship is no doubt as odd as she. Kristin is as gentle as a crazy science lady could be towards her test subject and he bends to her will to survive. There isn't any actual emotional connection between them but their conversations are open and flow easily.
Chayanne dares not entertain the idea of their relationship being anything greater than a prey and predator.
Even then, she was kinder than the others and he'd take her disturbing attitude more than constant tests.
At least when she does hurt him Kristin grants him one question to ask at the end of every treatment, he could ask anything but she has the right to decline or agree to answer them. So far, this has been the reason he's obeying her whims. He gets to know more about his potential enemies and possibly, find a way out of this shit hole.
"Can I ask about what you're trying to do to me now?"
The woman turns to him. "No, but I can tell you something different. About how I got my scar maybe?"
He shifts in his seat, intrigued, something the woman noticed and grinned.
"It's from my first success. Turned them into an Avian, just like me and they were… the prettiest Avian I've ever met" Chayanne took note of how the woman sounded so disturbingly lovesick but said nothing. There's a glimmer of nostalgia in her wistful purple eyes and he swears there's a hint of longing in them. "Gave me a parting gift before they left."
She pointed at her scar as if it was a badge to show around, her proud smile making his skin crawl. Just when he thinks he knows the limit of his doctor’s questionable behaviors, Kristin sighs like a lovesick high school girl for someone who fucked up her face smacks him in the face.
Even then, he couldn’t ignore the fact she dropped about them being able to escape the laboratory and plastered fake interest in his face, leaning towards the woman despite every fiber of his being screaming at him to run.
"How did they manage to leave?"
"That's not for you to find out, kiddo." She replied, lips tugging up into a grin. "Besides, even if I tell you, you won't be able to do it. Like humans, the Cucuruchos also adapt."
Remembering the glint of sadness in her eyes, Chayanne decided to focus on it instead.
"D-do you miss them?" She snapped her head at him, bewildered and he sputtered out. "I-I mean… they're your first successful hybrid no?"
"Only one question for today, kid. I'll get Fred to send you back to your cell."
The hiss of the metal doors opening cut off his trail of thought and he turned to the approaching man, his head still bowed down like every other day.
The man is… unique, he thinks.
The half-Cucurucho, half-human carries himself with shoulders hunched like he’s apologizing to the universe for the sole sin of existing, with gray eyes duller than his grandma's underwear with a matching set of dark bags under them yet even then, Chayanne thought of him as endearing.
Despite his quiet and ominous disposition and the fact that he’s selectively mute. In all Chayanne's time being Kristin’s lab rat, never has he ever seen the man ever utter a word to her like he does to him. So imagine his shock when he suddenly spoke up to him on the 6th day, albeit brokenly, asking him to eat the caramel ball.
Why does he hide the fact that he can speak?
The man is an enigma, his appearance doesn’t fit his actions and it scares Chayanne, as well as compels him to approach the man. Fred is the sun and he’s the idiot who’s mesmerized by its light, he just doesn’t know when he’s going to fall.
“Take him back but I’ll need him here first thing in the morning.”
Chayanne tries his best not to practically run towards his guard nor does he try to show his brimming excitement at the sight of him but he’s sure Kristin still saw it anyways.
When the doors behind them shuts, Fred is already in front of him, face contorted into the same anxious expression as yesterday, patched up hands taking his smaller ones to check for something Chayanne is yet to find out. He watched with rapt attention as the older man surveyed his nails, his forearms, his neck, hell, even his face this time.
He thought that maybe this time he’d tell him what he’s so worried about but instead, all he got was a weak smile and a flimsily wrapped caramel candy he found his teeth chattering over trying to break it in half. But in this hell where all food is mushy and barely edible, he’d take the jawbreaker sweets over the other food in the establishment.
Speaking of others… Maybe I should store this one for Richas or Ezekiel later…
“You’re still not going to tell me what this is all about?”
As any other day, he only smiled apologetically before motioning to follow him down the hall. Chayanne strolled behind him, mindful of the distance to maintain between them, just enough that he wouldn't get lost in the case of a crowd and to run away.
Fred, as odd as he is, is also an enigma Chayanne could never figure out.
The man whose overall mood is composed of being a wilted flower and a blank slate of a man he used to be, kept him at a confusing distance. He, who never fails to give him candy at the end of every treatment, is also the same guy who wouldn't bat an eye at him if they were to meet outside his duty as a bodyguard.
There's not a single doubt that the man wanted something from him but Chayanne could not, for the life of him, figure out what it is and it's keeping him up at night. He couldn't even ask him since he'd ignore him like he always does.
Fred steps aside as he pushes his cell door open but instead of entering, Chayanne stays back and stares at the man a little longer as if his gaze alone is enough to make him spill all his secrets out.
What does he want from him exactly and does this involve his friends somehow?
As if evolved into a psychic as well, Fred could only flash him that same annoying smile again and Chayanne gave up, stepping into his room. The metal door slams behind him, a mechanical sound whirs echoed in the small space before ending with a deep groan, he's locked up again.
His room is very humble compared to the one he has in Honor Villa. With a plain single bed in white sheets and one pillow laid on a platform screwed to the wall, and a pair of oak table and chair with a messily stored pile of books placed on the opposite side of the room. One of the perks he received was having his own toilet and shower room, it's not something he takes for granted, he's seen the hand-shaped bruises on Richarlyson's arms.
But despite all that, his room, like the others, is barely soundproofed and he's not immune to hearing the agonized screams of his peers down the halls, as well as to his left and front where Richarlyson and Ezekiel rests, though they don't hurt like the others do.
And for that, Chayanne is thankful.
He doesn't know what he'd do if they were injured. Hearing the others is enough to make his stomach hurt, he doesn't even want to imagine how he'd feel once their symptoms started to show.
______
There was another thing he liked about being under Kristin's care.
Another fact that shocked him during his stay in U.tofia was their living conditions. Depending on your assigned doctor, you either live well covered in fur blankets and plush pillows or get the barest minimum of supplies like cheap blankets but no pillows.
Being Kristin's golden boy, he was fortunately the latter. Fred is one of those benefits he received after falling under her responsibility.
His afternoon passed by uneventfully with a book in hand while laying in the most unconventional possible way in his bed. Head hanging on the edge, both legs spread wide and straight on the wall, there’s a resonating ache building up at his nape from the position but he ignores it.
This is how Ezekiel found him when his body blitzed in the middle of his room before falling to their knees as they held back the bile threatening to burst out of their mouth.
“Please don’t puke on my floor, I don’t have anything to wipe it off with.”
They grunted. "I think your shirt looks better with puke on it."
Chayanne doesn’t know when they started invading his space out of the blue but he’s sure that it was his slow transformation that made it like that. First, it was a harmless accident when Ezekiel teleported into his room in the middle of the night. He considers himself quite the heavy sleeper so he shouldn’t have woken up by the other’s abrupt entrance but when the intruder falls on top of him, in the safety of his bed, of course Chayanne is bound to wake up.
“What are you doing in my room?!”
“I wouldn’t be panicking right now if I knew what’s happening!”
“Dude you can’t just blitz in here! What if I was doing something?!”
“What? It’s not like you actually got a life!”
Is the panic they both inspired in the Cucuruchos the next day worth it? Yes but the aftermath for Ezekiel easily cancels it out.
They couldn't even blame them since it was random, a sudden burst that teleports them a few feet from where they stood which is a dangerous aspect alone. There's a possibility they could materialize inside the wall and he wished Kristin hadn't told him about it.
Ezekiel’s body, unlike him and Richarlyson, adapted to their hybrid counterpart faster than their peers. An Ender, Kristin has told him. A tall and dark creature that leers in the shadows and has the rare abilities of teleportation, their kind was dwindling and the Cucuruchos planned to make them flourish again but in their own perfect version.
But with how unstable their ability is with its growing frequency raises a couple of red flags in his head.
During one of their sessions, Kristin has told him how the experiments work. On some creatures they’ve worked on, something must be taken away for their abilities to truly fester, may it be something as easily dismissed as a few patches of hair or as valuable as chunks of memories. Kristin may be a bit cruel and dismissive of human lives but she’s not a liar and he fully believes what he told her.
Dread churns his stomach tight. What is Ezekiel paying for in exchange for the use of his abilities?
They groaned, sitting down instead with their head falling back to face the ceiling. “I’d say the books but they’re much more valuable than you.”
“You come into my house—”
“Your cell.”
“And you dare to call me useless? How about I kick your ass out right now?”
Ezekiel laughed only for it to be abruptly halted by a series of coughs. Chayanne sat up, his book now forgotten beside him, alerted at how wet it sounded as the other hunched over as their body shook with the intensity.
Chayanne is stupid but he’s not blind. He knows how different his doctor treats him from the others in the compound. He could see the colors start to deviate from its natural tones on Ezekiel’s skin and noticed how Richarlyson seems to live like a puppet being dragged by its strings along with the growing fogginess in his eyes.
He's dense but could see how often the former's mind starts to wander whenever they would meet in the cafeteria.
“Scrub that ugly look on your face, it makes you look worse.” Ezekiel's voice was weak and small when they uttered those words.
“Well, fuck me for being a worried friend then?”
Ezekiel laughs but it doesn’t launch them into another coughing fit. Seeing the look on their face, he knows they’re relieved too. They’re barely a month into the treatment and coughs like these are already weighing his heart heavy, he couldn’t imagine how it’d be once the worst side effects start kicking in.
Chayanne tries to not imagine the possibilities.
“No thank you, I have standards.”
The sight of the pillow hitting their face made Chayanne bark out a laugh only to be abruptly ended with the same item being slammed on his head.
When they both left his cell for dinner, the Cucurucho in charge of letting them free didn’t even bat an eye, already used to Ezekiel’s sudden appearance in either of their friends’ rooms.
Richarlyson drags himself out of his room in front of them, almost stumbling as he does so. The discoloration under his eyes is a bit darker than yesterday and Chayanne takes a shaky exhale. The boy immediately found them and forced out a smile as he waved them over.
“You look uglier today than usual, what happened?” Ezekiel jokes, slinging the younger boy’s arm around his waist.
Chayanne slapped his hand, shooting them a dirty look before wrapping his arm around Richas' waist as well, supporting the kid as he limped towards the exit. He tried not to notice the supporting purple bruise on his cheekbones nor the bloodied bandages around his left forearm but it's hard when your mistakes stare back at you.
If Chayanne hadn't persisted them to go to the slums with him, they wouldn't have been littered with bruises and new wounds hidden beneath thick bandages.
If he was given the chance to turn back time, he'd go back to the moment before he asked his friends to go to the slums.
“Would it hurt you to be a bit nicer?”
“Don’t change the subject, stupid.” They frowned but instead of answering them, Richas turned to Chayanne to study him from head to toe.
“You still not feeling anything weird?”
“She just started injecting me shit last week, of course it’s not here yet.” Chayanne answers, mustering a weak teasing grin at him. “Don’t think I didn’t notice you trying to change the subject.”
The cell hall doors hissed open, revealing the wide dome where a few others are already eating. The dining area is as mundane as the other aspects of the compound, with metal tables bolted to the ground littering the floor, despite the ratio of people to seats being 2:6, and like how the cafeteria usually looks, there are a few Cucuruchos behind the counter.
Everyone behind them dispersed to find their respective groups. There’s a selected few that threw them a dirty stare as they gathered with their mates, their jealous gazes burning a hole through his skull makes him tense. He knows they wouldn’t fight them knowing how much importance he holds to Kristin, the resident crazy bird lady
A week after they arrived, they were given the privilege of joining the other humans in the cafeteria but despite having no contact with the others, news of their importance spread like a virus across the establishments, even the Cucuruchos are aware of it.
If they were anywhere else, society would see and think of them as teens who are supposed to be loved and cherished. Not in U.tofia though, dangle a few bare minimum privileges disguised as VIP treatment on tormented souls and they shed off every hint of humanity they have. Chayanne doesn’t doubt the fact that the hybrids would’ve jumped his friends if he wasn’t around.
He motioned his head at them to move to their seats but Ezekiel shook their head at him and stood their ground.
"We're not moving until you tell us what happened."
Richas grunted. "Guys please, I can't really feel my legs right now. Can we do this another day?" At the pointed gazes he received, he sighed. "I'll tell you tomorrow. Can we please sit down now?"
Chayanne turned to Ezekiel whose eyebrows furrowed, face crunched in frustration. He opened his mouth, ready to shoot down their idea of forcing an answer out of Ezekiel but they were faster.
"Alright. That's a promise."
"That's not—"
"You said 'I'll tell you tomorrow' and that classifies as a promise."
Chayanne sighed, reaching up to pinch his nose bridge. He could feel everyone's eyes fleeting to them every now and then, mixtures of distaste, annoyance, and confusion but had no other choice but to remain still.
He turned to the Cucuruchos guarding the dome and almost immediately connected gaze with hollow gray eyes. Fred’s face is nothing short of its usual blankness yet his gaze tells a different story. There’s a hint of anxiety swimming in them, proven by the subtle swishes of his tail behind him as he looked at his peers at the edge of his eye, head unmoving.
Following the direction of the man’s gaze, he found himself looking back at beady eyes staring back at him so intensely. Memories of their arrival resurfaced in his mind, the sickening crunch of bones breaking, and their mocking jeers bouncing off the walls of his brain.
The creature is yet to speak yet fear has already paralyzed his body, every muscle freezing in place as a shiver ran down his spine.
"I didn't even say the p word! To be classified as a promise, it should be indicated!"
"Well I've already classified it as a promise in my book anyways!"
"Says who?!"
"Me??"
"G-guys…" Chayanne's voice wavered, his breathing hollow as he continued to stare back at beady eyes.
The Cucurucho tilts its head as if to taunt him before its lips twitch up into a smile, barring its sharp teeth at them, an underlying threat beneath it.
At the sound of his voice, the two turned to him, their argument immediately nulled by their friend's shaky interruption. Richarlyson and Ezekiel share a look before directing their concern at him.
"Don't. Let's just go sit down, please ."
“Sorry, Chay.” The two muttered under their breath as they all walked towards the counter.
Even finding their table and sitting far away from the others, he could still feel the heat of their gazes searing his skin even then, Richarlyson and Ezekiel continued to bicker, unaware of the hostile attention on their group.
The miserable excuse of a chicken soup has never looked more unappealing than it usually does.
Having no appetite does not make him oblivious though, his head was still quick to snap up to Richarlyson when his metal spoon fell from his grasp to clang loudly in the dome, immediately taming the crowd into silence.
He looked at the boy from head to toe, assessing him for any problems. Chayanne didn't need to search further when the other raised his flickering hands.
Wait, flickering?
"R-Richas?"
What happened next was a flurry of white and loud screaming.
One moment they were suspended in silence, stunned by the shift in their moods, the next, the Cucuruchos were hauling Richarlyson out of the room and both he and Ezekiel were pinned to the floor as they watched helplessly as their friend was dragged away.
Chayanne couldn't breathe, mind fuzzy from the quick succession of events.
There's also a burning sensation resonating within his entire body, he doesn't know how he got it but he guessed it's related to the sound of sizzling electricity next to his ears.
"Richas!"
Whether it was torn from his own throat or Ezekiel's, Chayanne doesn't care anymore. Every fiber of his being was torn into two, he wanted to break free from the weights pinning him down and run towards the terrified boy being dragged out of the room but at the same time, his entire being screams at him to stay put, stay low so they wouldn't hurt him further.
Choices have always come easily to Chayanne but now that he's found himself standing lost at a crossroad.
What should I do?
Mami, what would you have done?
Richarlyson's desperate calls for his name echoed in the hollows of his skull, each resonation more haunting than the last; the pure terror written so clearly on his face with his teary eyes made his heart tremble. They seeped into the crevice of his brain and Chayanne had the feeling it would torment him till the end of times.
Tacomedli on Chapter 2 Sun 03 Dec 2023 01:02AM UTC
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Vuinterro on Chapter 2 Sun 03 Dec 2023 01:53AM UTC
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Tacomedli on Chapter 3 Sat 09 Dec 2023 07:03AM UTC
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